http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24920991-5003402,00.html


Quote:

AUSTRALIA will probably have to go nuclear to tackle climate change, engineers and scientists say. They say nuclear power is the only reliable, proven source of electricity with a minimal carbon footprint. They're tipping 15 per cent of the country's electricity will come from nuclear reactors by 2050. And the first plant could swing into action just 10 years after approval is given. The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, which represents more than 700 experts, has issued a report calling for nuclear power to be on the table.

From that respect, the Libs had it right. I still think we need to investigate all clean energy options.

Australia has more sunlight than it knows what it do with. Can you even imagine how much energy is generated by the heat in the desert? If we wanted to, we could have huge fields of solar panels and hook it up to all major cities. Forget about nukes, we dont need them.

Loss of power over distance is no more than 10 per cent.

Have a look at this

http://www.desertknowledge.com.au/dka/index.cfm?attributes.fuseaction=pre_stdf

Also below is from Wiki about power loss over distances.

I'd like to see everyone in Australia have a solar power generator, connected as an enormous grid.

But then, the state doesnt have as much control over energy, does it?


Quote:

Losses Transmitting electricity at high voltage reduces the fraction of energy lost to Joule heating. For a given amount of power, a higher voltage reduces the current and thus the resistive losses in the conductor. For example, raising the voltage by a factor of 10 reduces the current by a corresponding factor of 10 and therefore the  losses by a factor of 100, provided the same sized conductors are used in both cases. Even if the conductor size is reduced x10 to match the lower current the  losses are still reduced x10. Long distance transmission is typically done with overhead lines at voltages of 115 to 1,200 kV. At extremely high voltages, more than 2,000 kV between conductor and ground, corona discharge losses are so large that they can offset the lower resistance loss in the line conductors. Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 [2], and in the UK at 7.4% in 1998. [3] As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for electricity was 4,000 miles (7,000 km), although all present transmission lines are considerably shorter. (see Present Limits of High-Voltage Transmission) In an alternating current circuit, the inductance and capacitance of the phase conductors can be significant. The currents that flow in these components of the circuit impedance constitute reactive power, which transmits no energy to the load. Reactive current flow causes extra losses in the transmission circuit. The ratio of real power (transmitted to the load) to apparent power is the power factor. As reactive current increases, the reactive power increases and the power factor decreases. For systems with low power factors, losses are higher than for systems with high power factors. Utilities add capacitor banks and other components throughout the system — such as phase-shifting transformers, static VAR compensators, physical transposition of the phase conductors, and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) — to control reactive power flow for reduction of losses and stabilization of system voltage.

Quote:

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, which represents more than 700 experts, has issued a report calling for nuclear power to be on the table.

Quote:

From that respect, the Libs had it right.

Yes sure they did.  Nuclear power isn't clean.  Interesting to see some on the fellowship list of ATSE - Directors of BHP and one of the submissions include the Garnaut report.  All looks a bit contradictory.

Australia can't afford nuclear power - it's not justified and there is conclusive evidence that it isn't safe.  These new reactors - stage ? - whatever they are - aren't even off the drawing board and it will be decades before they will be viable - if ever.

The majority of Australians don't want nuclear power either and if Rudd even considers it - he should be turfed out.  But then again - maybe he hasn't a choice - after all the former government had, with the help of the US nuclear waste industry, picked out some choice sites in the NT for a dump, the Ghan Railway is up and running for easy transport to the tip - thanks to Haliburton - and prior to Rudd being elected, didn't we become members of GNEP?

http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=745

http://www.aussiesolar.com.au/html/grid_feed_systems.php

Have a look at this product. You buy solar panels, and you sell electricity onto the grid that you don't use. That is if you generate more than you need, it goes onto the grid and discounts your bill.

As for nuclear power being safe, it absolutely is. What isnt safe is the waste, but they can be stored safely.

What happened in Chernobyl was appalling negligence, it is not an example of nuclear power being unsafe, no more than someone driving a truck into a crowded shopping centre would be an example of trucks being inherently unsafe.

Terrorism is also a worry with nuclear power, in that perhaps a group of Aloha Snackbar people take over a reactor, and tell the scientists to make it go critical at gunpoint. Or they learn how to do so themselves after taking it over.  Flying a plane into a nuclear power station would do nothng however.

Nuclear power makes no sense for Australia, not now, not ever. Solar is the way for us to go.

Quote:

Nuclear power makes no sense for Australia, not now, not ever. Solar is the way for us to go.

Agreed.

And as far as NP being safe - you might be looking statistically at the actual power stations in use today - but if you look at the process from start to go - mining to dismantling the old stations, which only have a short life span - there is nothing safe about NP.

Calanen wrote on Jan 17^th, 2009 at 10:48am:

http://www.aussiesolar.com.au/html/grid_feed_systems.php Have a look at this product. You buy solar panels, and you sell electricity onto the grid that you don't use. That is if you generate more than you need, it goes onto the grid and discounts your bill. As for nuclear power being safe, it absolutely is. What isnt safe is the waste, but they can be stored safely. What happened in Chernobyl was appalling negligence, it is not an example of nuclear power being unsafe, no more than someone driving a truck into a crowded shopping centre would be an example of trucks being inherently unsafe. Terrorism is also a worry with nuclear power, in that perhaps a group of Aloha Snackbar people take over a reactor, and tell the scientists to make it go critical at gunpoint. Or they learn how to do so themselves after taking it over.  Flying a plane into a nuclear power station would do nothng however. Nuclear power makes no sense for Australia, not now, not ever. Solar is the way for us to go.

Each Unit of electricity generated by PV Solar panel costs about 5 times as much as a unit generated by a large centralised solar thermal power station.

Solar panels (as opposed to solar hot water) doesn't make much economic or environmental sense. Apart from anything else the demand for silicon has pushed the price up through the roof.

As far as nuclear fission is concerned, we just have to look at the history. Compare how many people have been killed or seriously injured against coal fired. Coal fired generation produces more radioactive waste than nuclear and is seriously messing up the
planet to the extent that we might see massive casualties.

Even taking Chernobyl as the worst possible accident (in a design that will never be produced again), what is the area nowadays? Europe's most successful wildlife reserve.

Apart from Chernobyl we had a meltdown at 3 mile Island - How many deaths and injuries? - zero.

Go with pebble bed reactors or better, thorium based reactors and they become virtually fail-safe.

The Australian Population won't accept nuclear power because they don't understand it, and they certainly don't understand the implications of global warming.  

lol
Pebble bed reactors and Thorium reactors...  dear its just like listening to myself a few years ago.

Yes i'd suggest wait for the thorium reactors to come online or at the worst use pebble bed technology now.

THorium would be better though.

be nice if a government looked ahead for a change

Well I am with you Mantra, I have never heard of a nuclear facility that runs as a viable, cost effective energy producing system.
I have been told that all of them in commercial use, rely on government subsidies to make them viable.

So strike one, they cost us money.

What about the waste?

Have there been some revolutionary breakthroughs in containing and storing nuclear waste, that I have not heard of?

I find it to be the absolute pinnacle of humanities' hubris, to think we can safely store and handle a dangerous product, for a period of time, exponentially greater than that which any civilisation has lasted for.
Strike Two, the waste byproducts are deadly, for a period of time, greater than we can realistically plan for.

Next we have the issue of security. With the growing proliferation, and normalisation of nuclear energy, at the same time as we see a similiarly expanding number of groups with the desire, and capabilities to misuse nuclear material, we need to question just what security measures would be prudent, and what would it cost?
So we would need to guard nuclear material to prevent it falling into the wrong hands, and with the rest of us footing the bill.

Strike Three, Security Issues.

So as far as I am concerned, until they get these issues sorted out, I will not be supporting nuclear power use in australia.

I am unconvinced of nuclear power. It certainly should be on the table as an option.
Perhaps as part of the solution?

As far as I am aware, nuclear stations are expensive to build, expensive to run, have a limited life, VERY expensive to shut down, expensive to get rid of the waste.

mozzaok wrote on Jan 17^th, 2009 at 9:00pm:

Well I am with you Mantra, I have never heard of a nuclear facility that runs as a viable, cost effective energy producing system. I have been told that all of them in commercial use, rely on government subsidies to make them viable.

Here you can read about nuclear power generation that works well and is taxed more than alternatives.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf42.html

If we're talking cost effective, we need to use real economics that looks at the total overall environmental damage.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1776868.htm


Quote:

ELEANOR HALL: The most comprehensive review ever carried out on the financial cost of global warming has found that climate change could not only devastate the environment and cause mass migration but could cut the world's annual economic growth by 20 per cent. The report by UK economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, and commissioned by the British Government is to be released in London tonight. It calculates that the total global cost of climate change could run to $9 trillion and it warns there is only a small window of 10 to 15 years to address the problem, as Environment Reporter Sarah Clarke reports.

If you want expensive over the 100 year time frame, just go on generating electricity from coal.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jan 17^th, 2009 at 9:14pm:

I am unconvinced of nuclear power. It certainly should be on the table as an option. Perhaps as part of the solution? As far as I am aware, nuclear stations are expensive to build, expensive to run, have a limited life, VERY expensive to shut down, expensive to get rid of the waste.

If you have massive amounts of people, like in Russia, China, Europe, they make sense. But in a sparsely population place like Australia, they are ridiculous.

Solar power people. It's the way to go.

Quote:

Each Unit of electricity generated by PV Solar panel costs about 5 times as much as a unit generated by a large centralised solar thermal power station.

I absolutely agree with that - the question is - will the state go against so much vested interest to make a huge solar power station? I doubt it.

Have a look at this:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/scale/pubs/SOL-05-1048_1.pdf

It's a proposal for a high temperature thermal solar power tower, that will crack the 50% efficiency for energy production.

I expect geothermal power will come online well before 2050 and then nuclear won't be necessry. For base load supply, it is the only viable alternative to nuclear, so if it doesn't work out we will probably go with nuclear.

Solar cells are a really bad idea. They are one of the most expensive options around. They are only being considered because of the handout factor, ie buying votes. Putting them on individual roofs just makes them even more expensive.

Ah yes another of my favourites from a few years ago...  Australia is ideally suited...  just google HOT ROCKS

Hey Mozz...  you heard me discuss all these alternatives a few years ago on cracker...  how soon we forget.  :(

Well if I don't agree, I guess it must mean I have forgotten. ::)

While I respect the theory of "hot rocks" power, I am not holding my breath in the expectation of seeing it widely used in my lifetime, Solar on the other hand, is available here, and now, and will be installed on a roof, above me, quite soon. ;)

So while the arguments on cost per unit, etc. are perfectly valid, the fact is, that solar is available now, it is reducing our coal usage and reliance, now, and it has the bonus of making our daily power usage habits a part of our everyday consciousness, now.

Of course, some aspects of Nuclear power, make some sense, in some locations, sometimes.
But the problem of waste control is a hurdle, still not cleared, despite having been worked on for over half a century, with very little real progress towards providing the safe, long term solution, needed, before it could allow us to embrace nuclear, as a truly environmentally friendly alternative.

So, unless that particular aspect is addressed, I will vehemently oppose Nuclear power usage in Australia.
I think we have a responsibility to future generations, to not leave them a legacy of highly poisonous waste dumps to try and cope with.
Every power spree of quarter of a century of nuclear power, will leave a bill that an unknown number of future generations will be forced to keep paying for, and that is grossly unfair.

Grendel wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 12:10pm:

Ah yes another of my favourites from a few years ago...  Australia is ideally suited...  just google HOT ROCKS Hey Mozz...  you heard me discuss all these alternatives a few years ago on cracker...  how soon we forget.  :(

Yeah - Geothermal resources are making good progress there - from the latest report:


Quote:

In summary, the drilling has resulted in several positive implications: 1. The entire basis for the geological concept of a buried granitic heat source in the Frome project area has been proven with the intersection of granite at 1471 metres depth in Frome 12, some 50 km from the nearest basement granite outcrop. 2. There is a strong lithological correlation with outcropping, uranium rich granites in the Mount Victoria region to the south, that have high heat generating capacities. Drillcore will be analysed for uranium, thorium and potassium upon completion of the hole in order to calculate the precise heat generating capacity of the granite. 3. The granite in Frome 12 shows clear evidence of frequent and regular subhorizontal fracturing. Based on the layering evident in the seismic reflection data it is expected that the granite will have well developed subhorizontal fracturing. This is an essential feature required in order to establish a suitable lateral water flow through the hot granite. 4. Temperatures measured in Frome 12 continue to indicate above average temperature gradients. It is planned to continue drilling into the granite ( to a maximum depth of 1800 metres) if drilling penetration rates remain satisfactory, in order to gain further information concerning the fracturing in the granite and also to obtain data on the temperature gradient within the granite body itself. This information will be important in guiding future drilling in the region.

http://www.geothermal-resources.com.au/

mozzaok wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 1:17pm:

But the problem of waste control is a hurdle, still not cleared, despite having been worked on for over half a century, with very little real progress towards providing the safe, long term solution, needed, before it could allow us to embrace nuclear, as a truly environmentally friendly alternative. So, unless that particular aspect is addressed, I will vehemently oppose Nuclear power usage in Australia. I think we have a responsibility to future generations, to not leave them a legacy of highly poisonous waste dumps to try and cope with. Every power spree of quarter of a century of nuclear power, will leave a bill that an unknown number of future generations will be forced to keep paying for, and that is grossly unfair.

THe question is - what level of radiation would you be happy with for the waste? After all, we have naturally occurring ores that are radioactive. Would it be acceptable that it is no more radioactive than these? or than the human body?

If so, what's the difference between waste encapsulated in borosilicate and naturally occurring ore bodies? Do we need to continue to supervise nuclear wastes that are of a similar risk to natural ore bodies?

It's all a question of what level of risk is or is not acceptable. That's what we should be talking about, but it's not what the general public is talking about.

Quote:

So while the arguments on cost per unit, etc. are perfectly valid, the fact is, that solar is available now, it is reducing our coal usage and reliance, now, and it has the bonus of making our daily power usage habits a part of our everyday consciousness, now.

There are plenty of other options that are also available now and which are much cheaper and more reliable. It's another silly vote buying handout, that's all. Even if we were to go with solar, it would be far cheaper to build large plants than lots of little ones on our roofs. The extra cost is absurd and makes no economic or environmental sense. It can only be motivated by vote buying.

Well I have no idea what you are talking about Muso.

You seem to be implying that all the talk of high level nuclear waste is just a gross exaggeration, and that it is no more of a threat than naturally occurring levels, and concentrations, and if that is your contention, and you can back it up, then I have been misinformed on the subject.

Now FD, as far as solar goes, of course home solar units are not as efficient or cost effective as commercial solar would be, but it is something we can take advantage of immediately, to reduce our fossil fuel consumption, and while the arguments about the cost effectiveness of government subsidies is probably true, that won't stop me from taking advantage of it.
We see governments do lots of things less efficiently than we would like, but this one at least provides a tangible benefit, which is more than can be said for all their schemes.

Quote:

Now FD, as far as solar goes, of course home solar units are not as efficient or cost effective as commercial solar would be, but it is something we can take advantage of immediately, to reduce our fossil fuel consumption, and while the arguments about the cost effectiveness of government subsidies is probably true, that won't stop me from taking advantage of it.

There are plenty of other options we could also take advantage of immediately. In fact, by taking advantage of this, you are chewing up valuable resources that could have been used to make far greater reductions in our emissions. Double the reduction in 12 months time is almost twice as good. By accepting the handout you are effectively telling the government that you are gullible and your vote is up for grabs by the highest bidder. By taking the route that maximises the harm to the economy, you are icnreasing the risk of a backlash against environmentalism. Youa re creating a tradeoff between the economy and the environment that does not need to exist. You are creating another reason to oppose reducing our emissions.

Quote:

By accepting the handout you are effectively telling the government that you are gullible and your vote is up for grabs by the highest bidder. By taking the route that maximises the harm to the economy, you are icnreasing the risk of a backlash against environmentalism. Youa re creating a tradeoff between the economy and the environment that does not need to exist. You are creating another reason to oppose reducing our emissions.

Sh1t, I thought I was just getting eight grand to put up solar panels, I didn't realise I was destroying our whole way of life in the process,
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Does $8000 cover the full cost? What does your annual electricity bill come to, if you don't mind me asking?

It's usually a 50% rebate for stand alone PV systems. They are very popular in the bush because of the exorbitant cost of connection to the grid in some cases, but it's means tested unfortunately.

There is a new rebate starting in July 2009 which is not means tested, but it's only for $7500.

A 1kW system will cost around $15000 including Panels, regulators and batteries.

Work it out for your own location here:

http://www.energymatters.com.au/climate-data/

I suspect that even if you ignore the costly government handout and factor in the money you save by producing your own electricity, you could make a bigger dent in your carbon footprint by purchasing green energy with your out-of-pocket expense for panels. Obviously there will be even cheaper ways to reduce your carbon footprint by reducing electricity consumption. Panels only appeal to people because they get to see something being built in their own backyard. Simply paying the money for green energy does not give the same warm glow because you don't see the result.

I call it 'ecoparasitology', where you suck the blood out of your community by first injecting a clever little green anaesthetic.

I have plenty of firewood by growing grapes and severely pruning them in winter. It also makes me more independent from government and BB.

freediver wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 4:22pm:

I suspect that even if you ignore the costly government handout and factor in the money you save by producing your own electricity, you could make a bigger dent in your carbon footprint by purchasing green energy with your out-of-pocket expense for panels. Obviously there will be even cheaper ways to reduce your carbon footprint by reducing electricity consumption. Panels only appeal to people because they get to see something being built in their own backyard. Simply paying the money for green energy does not give the same warm glow because you don't see the result. I call it 'ecoparasitology', where you suck the blood out of your community by first injecting a clever little green anaesthetic.

FD, I guess it's a question of who do you trust. If the Petroleum companies can pull a swiftie by giving us ethanol bought from China on the spot market that is manufactured from Natural Gas, what is the Clean Energy subsidy being used for?

I pay the extra for clean energy, but do I think that it's being apportioned to pay for a clean source of energy? No. I suspect that it may be going to some kind of slush fund for whatever passes as clean energy research, including some half-hearted sequestration projects that don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of working out.

The overheads may be higher for PV panels, but at least the householder can see and measure the tangible benefit for themselves. The real benefit is that it generates interest in sustainable energy production.

Apart from any of that, it's the only real alternative in some parts of the bush. When you're faced with a $45,000 connection charge to be part of the grid, a stand alone Solar PV system is the only real alternative if you want to be part of the 21st Century.  Many people are living in the bush and teleworking. I know a design engineer who lives just North of Alice Springs. He still has to travel from time to time, but his projects are on both coasts and in SE Asia, so his location is sometimes an advantage.  

I'm not sure if you live in Qld or not, but have you tried to buy Clean Energy lately? The best you can buy is 10% of your total. I think it's the same in NSW.

I 'm pretty much with mozzaok on the concerns of nuclear waste.

It is not a renewable energy source.
It does take LOTS of energy to mine and refine uranium, it does take lots of water to run a nuclear plant, nuclear power plants do have a limited life, they do cost a LOT to decommission, the waste does last a LONG time.

In some ways, there are many drawbacks to nuclear power.

People in our parts of the bush were using all types of solar including  PV for over 20 years now. They reckon they started save money after less then 10 years.
I have build my first solar hot water system 25 years ago from old sheets of corrugated iron soldered together for less then $10.

Tallow - private solar systems that repay themselves in under 10 years sounds a LOT better than a huge nuclear power plant to me.

Personally I don't give a damn as long as we are mining Uranium and selling it to countries that can use it to generate Electricity and contractually can't use it to make nuclear weapons.

The more  we can displace coal fired energy generation by any other low footprint generation worldwide, the better off we'll all be in the long run.  If that has to happen in countries where the population don't have their head up their collective arses, then so be it. Sweden is a good example.

There are three factors in this - small footprint, long term (including environmental) cost effectiveness and speed of implementation.

Sometimes we have to settle for energy generation that has a higher long term cost but we can implement it faster. A lot depends on how much we can do in the next 10 years.

Good point muso.

time may be of the essence.

How long does it take to build a "pebble-bed" reactor?  10 years?

How long till Thorium become viable?  10 years?

Unfortunately short term thinking pollies are our biggest problem.  Mind you One Nation had a policy in its last election or the one before I think that pushed Nuclear power and car gas conversion...  not that anyone would know of course.  Apparently they are backwards thinking or just imbeciles.

Even imbeciles can pinch other party's policies.

A ten year payback could be pretty poor, or it could be really bad, depending on how you calculate it. I think some people ignore interest and inflation and only consider recouping the capital, so after ten years you are actually still a long way behind. That's when the PV systems need replacing....

Oh dear...  bitter and twisted.

No other party has such a policy  ::)

That's a lot of parties you are speaking for Grendel. Something tells me you haven't done your homework. You like to make big claims don't you?

Name one party with any chance of getting a sitting member and I'll concede the point.

BTW I know the policy of lots of parties...
that's what happens when you have a real interest in politics and the future of your country and vote based on policy not tribalism.

Do you think I vote based on some sort of tribalism?

No..  but apparently you are clueless about me and just like making ignorant negative assumptions, inferences and statements..

So how about that party fd?

Quote:

So how about that party fd?

Yes, I see you've shifted the goalposts already. How about that.

I haven't shifted anything...  you made a statement...  now backi up.

No use voting for the Nuclear power Party you'd be the only one.

Soooo back it up.

Now don't run away, prove your assertion right.

Quote:

I haven't shifted anything...

Oh really?


Quote:

No other party has such a policy

Quote:

Name one party with any chance of getting a sitting member and I'll concede the point.

Quote:

you made a statement...

Which was?

Quote:

That's a lot of parties you are speaking for Grendel. Something tells me you haven't done your homework. You like to make big claims don't you?

Well I have done my homework...  now it's time to show us all you did yours or were you just mouthing off.

Quote:

I pay the extra for clean energy, but do I think that it's being apportioned to pay for a clean source of energy? No. I suspect that it may be going to some kind of slush fund for whatever passes as clean energy research, including some half-hearted sequestration projects that don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of working out.

Yes obviously it has - a huge amount of cash has gone into research for "clean coal" - but it was announced yesterday that it can't be done.  As if we didn't already know that.  So now we have ATSE making noises about NP.  I don't think we have any choice in this matter.

Rudd promises us that there will be no NP stations and he'll get out of any deals that Howard made, but he can't.  Howard would have ensured all deals were tied up securely in his last term - that was his mission.

We've got the waste tip sorted out with Haliburton, the Railway's in place and in a matter of days we hear ATSE's recommendation for NP and learn that clean coal is not an option.

What happened to that idiot Garrett and his promises that every house in Australia would eventually have solar energy?  It won't happen because the coal industry has too much to lose especially seeing as we have directors of BHP on the board of ATSE.

Whether we want it or not - we'll get NP stations and as far as becoming a global waste tip goes - what sort of legacy are we leaving behind for future generations?  Who's going to guard this waste for the next half million years.  

Uranium processing will also commence here - that was on Howard's agenda as well.  The nuclear industry is very powerful and heavily subsidised.  What it costs us, especially in environmental damage,  is irrelevant as long as these powerful corporations continue to thrive and make massive profits for their shareholders.

Quote:

but it was announced yesterday that it can't be done

Where?

Grendel wrote on Jan 19^th, 2009 at 11:45am:

How long does it take to build a "pebble-bed" reactor?  10 years? How long till Thorium become viable?  10 years? Unfortunately short term thinking pollies are our biggest problem.  Mind you One Nation had a policy in its last election or the one before I think that pushed Nuclear power and car gas conversion...  not that anyone would know of course.  Apparently they are backwards thinking or just imbeciles.

Probably more like 20 years for Thorium. You need an accelerator based reactor - totally untried technology. The pebble bed reactor is already working in China.

This is scary. The only other person who supports nuclear energy on here. Maybe I misjudged you Grendel.  :o

muso wrote on Jan 19^th, 2009 at 9:13am:

Personally I don't give a damn as long as we are mining Uranium and selling it to countries that can use it to generate Electricity and contractually can't use it to make nuclear weapons. The more  we can displace coal fired energy generation by any other low footprint generation worldwide, the better off we'll all be in the long run.  If that has to happen in countries where the population don't have their head up their collective arses, then so be it. Sweden is a good example. There are three factors in this - small footprint, long term (including environmental) cost effectiveness and speed of implementation. Sometimes we have to settle for energy generation that has a higher long term cost but we can implement it faster. A lot depends on how much we can do in the next 10 years.

Nope, not the only one. I agree with you muso.

So much of the alternative energy sources still need some or substancial technological refinement. I am a big fan of solar but it is not currently cost effective as far as I can see, economically or environmentally. Making more energy efficient devices is also some thing that technology can/will expand on.

I hope Rudd is grown up enough to go down the NP path and does something to educate the public properly. People may still disagree with it once they know a few more facts but it won't be the bogeyman knee jerk fear. I was against NP many years ago but had come to the same conclusions as yourself even before the latest nuclear debate.

I guess that's why I identify more closely with environmentalists than Greenies.

The only thing that really scared me about Howard's push was that the NP stations were headed for the private sector. I would only support it if it was 100% government enterprise. I have greater faith in the proper maintenance etc and the profits going back into the public purse.

Quote:

Where?

There was an article in the Australian yesterday - I probably didn't read it thoroughly at the time, but it all boils down to the fact that it's going to cost the government too much and the coal industry has their hands out for a lot more.

THE Rudd Government's climate change strategy has been thrown into disarray by a warning that clean coal will not be viable under the proposed emissions trading scheme.

Clean coal is crucial to the Government's plans to tackle climate change, but the chief executive of the flagship ZeroGen project has told Resources Minister Martin Ferguson the carbon pollution reduction scheme will be a "significant barrier" to the development of clean coal technology.

"Australia's 5 per cent carbon reduction target accompanied by a weak carbon price will be nowhere near sufficient to generate the scale of investment needed to make clean coal technologies economically viable," Anthony Tarr warns Mr Ferguson in a letter obtained by The Australian.

ZeroGen is regarded as the most advanced clean coal project in the country, and a world leader. The Queensland government-backed company, supported by energy giant Shell, plans to develop a world-leading demonstration low-emission coal-fired power plant by 2012, followed by one of the world's first large-scale low-emission plants before 2017.

Kevin Rudd praised the ZeroGen project during a visit to its Stanwell site, outside Rockhampton, as Opposition leader in 2007, calling clean coal "critical for Australia's economic environmental future".

But Dr Tarr says the Rudd Government's ETS fails to distinguish between commercial operations and research-and-development projects.

"Low-emission technology deployments, along with many other first-of-a-kind technologies, have high risks involved," Dr Tarr warns in his letter. "Along with the high costs that project proponents will face as early movers, they will be forced to pay for permits for emissions generated whilst acquiring these valuable learnings.

"Projects such as ZeroGen would need to pay for permits to emit whilst the dirtiest coal generators in Australia are given permits free of cost."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24929818-11949,00.html

The Opposition says clean coal technology will never be developed if the Government puts all the revenue raised from selling permits under the ETS into compensation.

"ZeroGen was the only project of its type left in the world," Opposition resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane said.

"It was the project Kevin Rudd was lauding as his international project.

"If the Government doesn't breathe life back into ZeroGen and the project folds, basically there is no zero emission project in a developmental stage.

"The Government is conceding defeat on clean coal, which not only affects the domestic industry and the price of electricity but also says no one in the world is going to develop clean coal technology. The future for thermal coal is bleak."

Under the proposed ETS, assistance will be given to coal-fired generators in operation or that were committed to be constructed before June 2007, leaving projects such as ZeroGen out in the cold.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24935538-11949,00.html

Obviously the price of electricity will have to go up before any alyternatives become viable. However, you will still get a reduction in consumption at lower prices. When you said not viable I assumed you meant there was a technical problem.

This is a consequence of the global economic downturn. Carbon is trading at an all time low.

It's still high enough to promote Nuclear Energy.

We should have gone with carbon taxes instead. The industry needs a steady price to lure investors.

Quote:

Obviously the price of electricity will have to go up before any alyternatives become viable. However, you will still get a reduction in consumption at lower prices. When you said not viable I assumed you meant there was a technical problem.

I did infer that - but obviously experts believe there will be as well - otherwise the government would get right behind this industry.  They don't want to keep throwing money at an uncertain industry that can't promise anything I assume - or else they're being held to ransom by the coal industry.


Quote:

We should have gone with carbon taxes instead. The industry needs a steady price to lure investors.

I agree


Quote:

Carbon is trading at an all time low. It's still high enough to promote Nuclear Energy.

No never.  The ramifications aren't worth it - but then again the anti-nuclear lobbyists aren't as powerful as the pro-nuclear lobbyists.

How many fully qualified technicians experienced in building nuclear power stations do we have in Australia?

Well I disagree with you Muso, and I still would like to hear what you meant with the earlier post, which seemed to imply that nuclear waste is not really an issue of any real concern.

I have always been led to believe that it is really toxic, for a really long time, and not just like naturally occurring radiation, which seemed to be the thrust of your earlier post.

Are you able to explain that in plain english terms, or at least in a manner simple enough to not require a degree in nuclear technology, to comprehend.

This is the big sticking point for me, so if you can change my mind on the waste factor, I would be prepared to change my ideas on australia employing nuclear power.

mozzaok wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 12:06pm:

Well I disagree with you Muso, and I still would like to hear what you meant with the earlier post, which seemed to imply that nuclear waste is not really an issue of any real concern. I have always been led to believe that it is really toxic, for a really long time, and not just like naturally occurring radiation, which seemed to be the thrust of your earlier post. Are you able to explain that in plain english terms, or at least in a manner simple enough to not require a degree in nuclear technology, to comprehend. This is the big sticking point for me, so if you can change my mind on the waste factor, I would be prepared to change my ideas on australia employing nuclear power.

I'll give it a go later, but the bulk of radioactive waste is very low level. I'll get all my ducks in a row and explain some time.

I don't think there are any technical issues with waste disposal. It's just a matter of cost. I don't think the cost is prohibitive either. It's probably partly laziness that the US hasn't started burying theirs. Also, with rapid improvements in our understanding of geology as well as mining technology, it may work out a lot cheaper in the long run to store it for a century then bury it. Then it may simply be a matter of dropping it down a big hole. We are digging some very large wells into radioactive rock at the moment for geothermal energy. Each of these will only last a few decades I think. Maybe one of them will do.

Well FD, the , "Let's just drop it down a hole" solution, has never impressed me as being particularly well thought out, for the containment of the thousands of tons of high level waste produced each year.

This high level stuff carries a potential risk, for tens of thousands of years.

So, for longer than recorded human history dates back, we have to make sure this stuff is safely contained, for longer than that, into the future. No corrosion, no water contact, no environmental contact.

The US have in fact started work on a "hole", to put their high level waste, and expect it to be finished in another year or two.
It is the Yucca Mountain site.

So, the US has their sixty thousand tons of their own high level waste to start with, and then their is the waste from the rest of the world to deal with.
That was why Howard signed us up for GNEP, or whatever it was called, we are seen as a good place to dump the rest of the world's nuclear garbage. So as partners in the world nuclear club, we get to dig it up, then bury it again.

The technical issues are huge and unresolved.  The nuclear lobbyists will say it's fine stuck down a hole as Mozzaok says and only one country was dumb enough to agree to become the world's nuclear waste dump - and that was us under the coalition.  

Australia is considered geologically stable enough for a dump - but there is conflicting information and many dispute this.

This is a brief extract from Wiki.

The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to living organisms. Of particular concern are two long-lived fission products, Technetium-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and Iodine-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent nuclear fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years.

The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are Neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and Plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years). Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to successfully isolate it from the biosphere. This usually necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form.

Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, usually involving deep-geologic placement, although there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions.

This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years,  according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.

Not just any old hole. One that has the appropriate geology and is deep enough to stop it leaking out. The geothermal heat is actually generated by radioactive decay - the same decay that powers nuclear reactors. There is no need to panic about this radioactive decay, just as there would be no reason to worry about waste in the same scenario. Tens or hundreds of thousands of years is not a significant amount of time for the geology of these areas.

I've heard that Yucca mountain is not a good choice. This is why it may be both safer and cheaper to wait while our understanding of geology improves.

Quote:

The technical issues are huge and unresolved.  The nuclear lobbyists will say it's fine stuck down a hole as Mozzaok says and only one country was dumb enough to agree to become the world's nuclear waste dump - and that was us under the coalition.

Now that is bulls#it mantra.
In fact ther only one really pushing it was former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

For the forgetful
and uninformed...


Quote:

Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases, but it has many drawbacks. Now a radical new technology based on thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy - and a way to burn up old radioactive waste.

much more info here...

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1341/green-nuclear-power-coming-norway

oh look...  we are doing something after all.

http://www.ga.gov.au/minerals/research/national/thorium/index.jsp

and...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1940121.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/01/20/1283387.htm

http://www.petratherm.com.au/exploration/index.htm

and last but not least the PBR...

http://pebblebedreactor.blogspot.com/2007/01/pbr-passive-safety-comes-from-basic.html

Quote:

Now that is bulls#it mantra. In fact ther only one really pushing it was former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Hawke stuck in his two cents worth as an ex PM, but he wasn't leader for 11 years and negotiating these deals to sell off Australia as a waste dump.  He wasn't best buddies with Bush & his nuclear mates

Typical right wing comment - always blame a Labor PM who isn't in power when we're sold out.

I hold no issue with us  doing research into better nuclear options, and like grendel, and others mentioned, Thorium looks very promising, and Hot Rock technology is another area well worth fast tracking, but the issue of our existing high level waste stockpiles, remains of huge concern, primarily because of the still unknown time frames we will be dealing with.

Fix this problem, and I can see nuclear as being far more acceptable as a response to our carbon issues.
Even so, the time frames involved in planning and constructing, even current technology reactors, would see a fifteen year wait at the very least, so the whole argument of what we do in the next ten years is critical, seems to strike out nuclear as well.

Quote:

so the whole argument of what we do in the next ten years is critical, seems to strike out nuclear as well.

Not completely. Immediate action is necessary. But the immediate and total elimination of CO2 emissions is not. You pick the low hanging fruit first. We are still going to be trying to eliminate coal as a baseload supplier in 15 years.

Radioactive materials are handled extremely well in Australia. I can tell you that from experience. I doubt if we'll ever get to the stage of the USA which has thousands of tonnes of high level waste awaiting disposal. The americans have tended to be very shoddy in terms of environmental issues in the past, and it has come back to bite them.

I was a radiation safety officer (part of my role) about 10 years ago. It's a legislative requirement to have an RSO in Queensland when using radioactive sources. We used mainly Cesium 137 based gauges, typicqally around 30-150 mCi.

I had to have a badge which was sent off to Radiation Safety every month without fail. My badge always had the highest readings and I had about five "Please Explain" letters from the department. The reason for this was the fact that I flew a lot of long haul flights, and my badge went with me. So the increased exposure to cosmic rays meant that I had to explain myself, because my dosage was getting close to the limit.

We had to work under a radiation safety plan. Most of the time, everything went totally smoothly. However on one occasion, I organised a new source from ANSTO. I phoned them repeatedly to make sure they gave me 2 weeks notice then 48 hours notice of shipment.

Then out of the blue, I was walking out the security gate on the way home and here was a local courier with some paperwork for me. He had the source. OK it was shielded, locked and I had the key for it, but there was no warning of delivery, no signage on the truck, and the truck wasn't licenced for the transport.  

I just about shot the messenger before I calmed down. So I got copies of the consignments and hastily put together an incident report and faxed it off to Radiation Health. The next morning I received an earfull from some stupid bitch at Radiation Health, saying that I had no right to transport it in this way. When I eventually got her to stop rabbiting on, I told her that I was the one who was reporting it, because these cretins at Lucas Heights had organised delivery without telling me. Anyway, the whole thing was investigated, and the fault was with the transport company, who were not authorised to deliver to our site.

With nuclear waste, the transport requirements are even stricter. Australia is leading the way for High Level waste storage with the development of synrock which is pretty amazing stuff. You could sit in a room with a block of synrock loaded with high level waste for a day without shielding and suffer no serious consequences.

There are several factors that determine the risk with high level nuclear waste. One is the specific activity of the isotope, and that varies enormously. For example, you could hold a block of Uranium 238 in your hand with no ill effects. It has a half life about the age of the Solar System or 4.5 billion years, but it's safe enough to handle.

Grendel is right about the use of Thorium reactors to handle high level waste, but we already have the technology for that anyway. They are called fast reactors.

The actinide component of nuclear waste is re-usable. If we could just legislate to re-se it, we'd solve at least part of the problem.

Mantra was right in that radio Tc  and I are the most high risk isotope that remain much longer than the others. The only solution for those is to encapsulate using synrock or borosilicate glass (US solution).

So the problems are not insurmountable. If we can bury the most difficult of the wastes in stable granitic batholiths then seal them up, it's the safest option.

Hawke stuck in his 2 cents???????????????????????????????

He was the official face and lobbyist for the company pushing the idea  :D

He was spruiking this idea for a long time before it even was tossed around by government.

you should give up on the conspiranut crap and join the real world BTW  or see someone about you anti-Howard obsession.
Oh and for the last time I hope...  I am NOT a RWger

I didn't say you were a right winger, but you make a lot of right wing comments.  Whether Hawke pushed for NP or not - it was the coalition who moved on this issue.  Labor was supposed to be anti-nuclear reactors remember.  These comments of Hawkes came during Howard's reign.

The aftershocks of the Howard government will continue on for years - so if something is relative to his leadership - I will comment whether you like it or not.  Couldn't be more obsessive than your infatuation with ON or Abu's "lies".

Good grief...  we are talking about the Nuclear Dump mantra...  Hawke was 1000% behind the idea and was the representative/lobbyist for it.

oh and mantra...  if people want to lie about things..  ON, Hanson , Howard, Hawke  etc, etc, etc...  I will tell them the truth.

Your problem is you are incorrect or ignorant about so much it isn't funny.  It isn't just obvious to me mantra.

You only tell your truth Grendel.

Tell me this though - when Hawke became a NP lobbyist - was it when he was PM or during Howard's leadership?

If it was under the coalition - Hawke's ideas were really of no consequence or influence - SO DON'T BLAME HIM.

good grief what don't you understand about Nuclear Dump mantra?

Honestly your idiocy is giving me a head ache...  what don't you understand about representing an idea and lobbying?

Hawke did it as an ex-PM. Why are you so thick?


Quote:

Recently Bob made the news with the brilliant idea to make Australia the nuclear dump of the world, he reckoned we could make heaps of money by storing nuclear waste, as Australia's ancient landmass is so geologically stable (tell that to people in Newcastle).

Quote:

A Suppository? From the ABC Hawke backs Aust as nuclear waste repository Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke says Australia should become a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste. Mr Hawke says Australia should abandon the three-mines policy on uranium and promote itself as a safe place for the world's nuclear waste. He says the money raised could go towards funding environmental problems such as salinity and to the Aboriginal communities affected by the waste grounds. GusNiews: It's alright... I already glow in the dark for my early days working in that thorium factory... Are these people nuts or what? Puppets? Who pulls their little strings? Ah I see! it's alright to store crap for the rest of the world if you use the money for a good cause...    * By Gus Leonisky at 27 Sep 2005 - 10:59am    * Login or register to post comments

Quote:

THE ULTIMATE CONTEMPT by Brian Simpson After helping to make Australia a dumping ground for the world's surplus population, former PM Bob Hawke now proposes that Australia should be a nuclear waste dump for the world. Can I suggest that if Bob Hawke likes nuclear waste so much that the first dump be placed in his backyard. Oh - and that Bob not be permitted to "migrate" elsewhere when the "glowing" starts.

Quote:

26 September 2005         Former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke calls for Australia to consider accepting the world's nuclear waste, creating a furore.        Nick Leys, 'Hawke's nuclear plan proves explosive', The Australian, 27 September 2005.

Just as I said - I'm always right Grendel - you're always wrong...you need to give up contradicting me.

Since when did ex PM's make international agreements with foreigners to destroy our country.  Yes he threw in his 2 cents worth as I said earlier - that's all it was.  Don't put the blame on Hawke - Howard signed, sealed and delivered the deal on the nuclear dump and signed us up to the GNEP, not Hawke.  


Recently Bob made the news with the brilliant idea to make Australia the nuclear dump of the world.....

Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke says Australia should become a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste....

Former PM Bob Hawke now proposes that Australia should be a nuclear waste dump for the world.

Bob Hawke calls for Australia to consider accepting the world's nuclear waste, creating a furore


He said.... he called for....he proposed....his brilliant idea... When did Hawke have the authority to start making policies for the coalition?  He may have been a lobbyist in an unofficial capacity - but that's all he was.

I'm sorry you have become a complete idiot and need to create strawmen to try and justify your stupidity.

The last government did not make any "international agreements with foreigners to destroy our country."

Hawke did exactly what I said he did...  lobbied for us to become the world's Nuclear Waste Dump.

Why are you lying about what I said?  is there a virus going on around here where people all lie about what I say?  Or is it just a pathetic ploy used by the intellectually incapable?

Former PM proposes Australia as world's nuclear dump

28 September 2005 New Zealand Southland Times

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/southlandtimes/0,2106,3425367a6438,00.html

SYDNEY: A former Australian prime minister has proposed that the country offer to store the world's nuclear waste in its vast desert interior and use the money earned on environment and social welfare programmes.

Bob Hawke, who led a centre-left Labour government from 1983 to 1991, stunned political and business leaders when he made the proposal at an informal debate, widely reported in local media yesterday.

"What Australia should do in my judgment, as an act of economic sanity and environmental responsibility, is say we will take the world's nuclear waste," Hawke said.

"Australia has...geologically the safest places in the world for the storage of waste," he was quoted as telling a gathering of Australian alumni of Oxford University.

Labour opposition leader Kim Beazley said the plan was not party policy but Tony Abbott, the conservative government's health minister, said it was a good idea even though the government was not considering importing nuclear waste.

"It is a visionary suggestion but unfortunately there are a lot of politics in this," Abbott told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) radio.

"Now right at the moment, we can't even get agreement on where to put a nuclear repository for Australia's waste, let alone a repository for the world's waste," he said.

Prime minister John Howard's administration scrapped plans for a national dump to store Australia's own medical, industrial and research waste from the country's sole nuclear reactor after states failed to agree on a location.

It is now considering three potential sites in the continent's outback heart, including one a few hundred kilometres from the Uluru monolith, a popular tourist attraction.

Hawke said money earned from the plan could be used for environmental programmes such as combating increasing salinity and supporting underprivileged outback indigenous communities.

"We can revolutionise the economics of Australia if we do this," Hawke said.

Large parts of Australia are geologically stable and could be a safe repository for nuclear waste, University of New South Wales geologist David Cohen told Reuters.

"Of course, proper engineering would need to address potential problems of leakage of nuclear materials," Cohen said.

But the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said Australia should instead focus on becoming a world leader in renewable energy.

"Getting more deeply involved in the dirty, dangerous nuclear industry is not the path we should be taking," ACF director Don Henry said in a statement.

Not in our back paddock
Neither the public nor politicians are behind Bob Hawke's proposal to make Australia the world's nuclear waste dump, writes Katharine Murphy

September 28, 2005 The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16743059%5E28737,00.html

TEN years ago, an American research company called Pangea Resources, which was funded by international nuclear industries, developed a top-secret research project identifying possible sites for a high-level nuclear waste dump.

Pangea chose Australia as its favoured option. Australia had all the right elements: the perfect geography to store nuclear waste, stable countryside in remote Western and South Australia and lots of isolated places. It had a strong economy and the required political stability.

Pangea envisaged the $6 billion high-level storage facility as a commercial enterprise, accepting waste from foreign nuclear reactors and possibly from weapons.

The site would have its own purpose-built rail link and port facility and waste would be moved on a fleet of ships built for the purpose.

Pangea's efforts to win high-level backing for its politically explosive baby started with the Hawke-Keating Labor government and continued after the election of John Howard's Coalition. But the project imploded spectacularly in 1998. An environmental group got wind of the dump proposal and made it public. Alarm was immediate and overwhelming. Politicians ran for cover. The idea sank without trace.

But on Monday night Bob Hawke stirred up a political hornets' nest by putting the option - or something similar - back on the national agenda.

Labor has two of its elder statesmen, Hawke and former NSW premier Bob Carr, seemingly determined to drag their reluctant party and the country to a new position in a global debate about nuclear energy. Hawke comes at the debate with an eye for commerce, Carr with an eye on the environment.

"What Australia should do, in my judgment, as an act of economic sanity and environmental responsibility, is say we will take the world's nuclear waste," Hawke said on Monday night in Sydney. "We could revolutionise the economics of Australia if we did this."

Hawke has diverse business interests and his long-time activism on the part of Australia's uranium industry is on the public record. When the Labor Party split bitterly in the 1980s over uranium mining, it was Hawke who glued the party back together and took it forward with his "three mines" policy. The uranium industry was allowed to develop and make an economic contribution to the country. About a year ago, Hawke argued that it was time for the ALP to rip up his legacy. The three mines policy should go, he said, and Australia should board the nuclear cycle and reap the commercial benefits.

Carr, meanwhile, subscribes to the view that nuclear energy must be one of a number of solutions to address greenhouse gas emissions. A committed greenie, Carr annoyed many of his colleagues earlier this year by saying the country needed a rational debate about nuclear power because renewable energy options were not being developed quickly enough.

A nuclear dump proposal to process the world's waste may make a contribution to the economy (Hawke's revolution seems a stretch), but it will certainly require a political revolution to make it happen. Hawke's championing of a high-level nuclear dump is light years ahead of where the Australian public and his former parliamentary colleagues are at.

Underscoring the political sensitivities, Carr ran a mile at the idea of a waste dump being built in his state when he was NSW premier.

Labor's federal resources spokesman, Martin Ferguson - another key player in favour of expanding uranium mining in Australia - wasn't backing the Hawke thought bubble yesterday. "[While] I respect Bob Hawke as a person of intellect, I don't think the Australian community is ready to accept a high-level waste repository," Ferguson says.

But Ferguson believes Australia, like the rest of the world, has to come to terms with the problem of nuclear waste, with our energies best placed in encouraging more research and development and working closely with other countries on the problem.

The Pangea blueprint suggests that a waste dump in Australia can be geologically and economically viable.

According to the Uranium Information Centre, economic modelling commissioned for the axed dump project suggested it could generate export revenues in the order of $US100 billion over 40 years. The facility would pay governments about $US50 billion over 40 years. The numbers were crunched on the assumption that the facility would take 2000 to 3000 tonnes of spent fuel a year and 20,000 cubic metres of intermediate waste, eventually about 20 per cent of the waste from nuclear reactors across the world.

THE NUCLEAR DEBATE

  * The Howard Government wants more uranium mines and to increase uranium exports to take advantage of booming international demand.
   * Mining uranium to fuel nuclear energy is considered by some Australian and international politicians as one solution to greenhouse gas emissions.
   * Environmentalists argue you cannot increase uranium mining without having a plan to store nuclear waste.
   * Canberra and the states have been unable to agree on building a low-level nuclear waste dump despite years of argument.
   * Low-level nuclear waste in Australia is stored at about 100 sites.
  * Bob Hawke wants Australia to take high-level nuclear waste from the rest of the world.
   * The Australian public is strongly against taking nuclear waste.

But, politically, the idea is nothing short of a suicide mission. One federal Labor politician told The Australian yesterday: "There might be method in Hawke's madness but, believe me, he's on his own on this one."

The public simply won't buy it, at least not yet and not before the need to move away from traditional energy sources and gamble on new ideas becomes much more acute.

A recent Newspoll taken for SBS television has found that Australia may be slowly warming up to nuclear power but we are a long way off thinking it's a good idea to bring waste home. More than 80 per cent of a national survey group of 1200 say they oppose accepting nuclear waste from countries that buy Australian uranium. Hawke knows he has put his finger firmly on the key fault line in this growing debate.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner David Noonan recently challenged Australia's politicians to submit to the postcode test: who would support a nuclear waste dump or a reactor in their electorate? He suspected there would not be many takers, despite signals from many players in the Howard Government that they support nuclear energy in principle.

Environmentalists argue you can't divorce the uranium and nuclear power industry from the problems it creates: waste, the increased risk of nuclear proliferation, damage to the environment and risks to the health and welfare of workers and the wider community.

Despite years of wrangling, Australia has not yet been able to resolve the problem of where to locate a low-level waste facility to store the waste generated by government departments, agencies and hospitals.

After an unseemly squabble, Howard announced in July he would shelve plans to build a low-level radioactive waste repository at Woomera in South Australia.

Now Canberra wants to build a facility on commonwealth land at one of three potential sites in the Northern Territory. Science Minister Brendan Nelson's department will shortly issue a request for tender for field studies to take place at the sites.

The continuing failure to resolve this issue means that low-level radioactive waste is scattered across the country at more than 100 locations, an arrangement that is no doubt less than suitable for the purpose.

According to Nelson's response to a recent question on notice from Ferguson, waste is stored in many places, starting with Woomera and Lucas Heights in outer Sydney. The Department of Defence stores waste in Melbourne, Ipswich, Wodonga, Adelaide, Newcastle, Darwin, Sydney and Nowra. The CSIRO has waste stored in Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide, Mt Gambier, Brisbane and Melbourne. The Australian National University in Canberra also stores nuclear waste.

Even in its proponents' best-case scenario, it's unlikely there'll be a low-level waste dump up and running with all the necessary approvals before late 2011. Meanwhile, the Howard Government is busy pulling out all stops to expand uranium mining to take advantage of the world price for uranium, which has tripled in recent years.

Australia has the largest low-cost deposits of uranium in the world. Australia also sits on the doorstep of the huge Chinese market. China is pressing ahead with building nuclear power stations and markets are opening up in Southeast Asia.

Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane wants Australia's resources giants to be able to cash in on the boom. Many senior figures inside federal Labor and some within the trade union movement agree. But both sides of politics are acutely aware that public anxiety over nuclear waste can bring this push to expand uranium mining undone.

The minerals industry argues Australia should be able to get to a point where uranium is treated like any other commodity.

The chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, Mitch Hooke, says Australia doesn't routinely take back fly ash generated by coal-fired power stations or slag from steel making. Not surprisingly, the chief lobbyist for Australia's resources companies says the pain should not be borne exclusively by the uranium mining industry.

Hooke says the industry is committed to "material stewardship", where all elements of the production chain, from miners to manufacturers through to consumers, take their share of responsibility for the environmental consequences of the industry.

Hooke says Hawke's backing for a new high-level dump is "a matter for debate" and that companies will pursue the idea if it is a commercial venture. But he warns any proposal will have to run the gauntlet of complex federal and state government regulations.

Quote:

Hawke, who said he was "dragged out of retirement" to spearhead the campaign, .....

Quote:

Mr Hawke told the gathering that Australia had the ideal geology for safe storage and plenty of empty space.

What was that... spear head the Campaign....  
What was that... a GATHERING.


Quote:

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane has rejected a call by former prime minister Bob Hawke for Australia to become the world's nuclear waste dump.

At yet another gathering...

Quote:

In a speech at a gathering of Oxford University graduates in Sydney last night, the former Labor prime minister said his party should abandon the three mines policy on uranium and promote Australia as a safe repository for the waste. The money Australia received for being a global repository could be used for environmental programs, he said. AdvertisementAdvertisement "Australia has the geologically safest places in the world for the storage of waste," Mr Hawke told the gathering. "What Australia should do in my judgement, as an act of economic sanity ... and environmental responsibility, [is] say we will take the world's nuclear waste." Mr Hawke later said the initiative would give Australia a huge source of income. "If we were to do that, we would have a source of income ... which we could hypothecate to environmental issues in this country - salinity, also to Aborigines because this would be in an area where the Aboriginal people would be and I have reason to believe that we could negotiate with them," he told ABC Radio. "We could revolutionise the economics of Australia if we do this."

Yes mantra despite all your crap  it seems it was actually I that was right.
Now run along...

Of course you'd be ignorant of the media blitz by Bob at the time too wouldn't you.

here's a link to the ABC interviews.

http://www.oba.com.au/uploads/downloads/media/AM%20-%20Hawke%20nominates%20Australia%20as%20worlds%20nuclear%20waste%20dump.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1469734.htm

Why do you talk about stuff if you are ignorant of the facts.

call yourself a greenie...  even all the green groups were up in arms against him...

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/32704/story.htm

just google... hawke nuclear dump...

gnep

Fact Sheet - Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/Articles/Downloads/07-09-11%20nuclear_energy_partnership.pdf Similar pages

Who the hell cares whether it's a Right Wing or a Left Wing thing anyway?

I just don't follow what one political party says on one issue over another. I tend to examine the issue itself and make up my own mind. I will never get a perfect fit with the policies of any political party, and by the way, I agree that One Nation had some good policies. They were a shambles otherwise but they did come up with some good ideas by not following the party line.

It's a pity that the Democrats have gone downhill, because I admired the fact that individuals were almost encouraged to hold individual opinions that differed from the Party line. Apart from that, I really miss Natasha Stott Despoya  ;) as leader of the Dems.

I just can't understand how people can blindly follow party lines. For example if they don't have a strong opinion on an issue,  do they think, "I'm ALP so my opinion must be ALP's party line. Maybe I should read it so that I know what my opinion is" (Substitute Liberal, and it's the same thing)

Who gives a flying f^&* what past Prime Ministers did? What's important is to examine the issue now on its own merits.

Bob Hawke? Give me a break. So nothing has changed with the world since Bob Hawke was PM?

I've read all that stuff ages ago - but answer this?

Why was Hawke dragged out of "retirement" to spearhead the plan?  It wasn't under the coalition government when this occurred.

How contradictory are these quotes in your articles:

Prime minister John Howard's administration scrapped plans for a national dump to store Australia's own medical, industrial and research waste from the country's sole nuclear reactor after states failed to agree on a location.

It is now considering three potential sites in the continent's outback heart, including one a few hundred kilometres from the Uluru monolith, a popular tourist attraction.

So was it scrapping plans or considering 3 potential sites?

The same in this article....

After an unseemly squabble, Howard announced in July he would shelve plans to build a low-level radioactive waste repository at Woomera in South Australia.

Now Canberra wants to build a facility on commonwealth land at one of three potential sites in the Northern Territory. Science Minister Brendan Nelson's department will shortly issue a request for tender for field studies to take place at the sites.

Did Howard or didn't he?  He did pick out a site and as there has been an agreement made with the aborigines, although I'm not sure if the Pangea submission was revived, one of it's subsidiaries or another company.

I've got a lot of information on this.  Hawke as you stated was dragged out of retirement to get his 5 minutes of fame and was used by the Howard government. This was hushed up of course - far too controversial and would have definitely spoilt Howard's re-election chances.

Liberal Party endorses international nuclear waste dump
by Imogen Zethoven — posted at 03-06-2007 19:50 last modified 03-06-2007 19:50

Yesterday the Federal Council of the Liberal Party made an extraordinary decision – with far reaching consequences.

It endorsed an international nuclear waste dump in Australia. If the Government were re-elected, Australia would become the dumping ground for the world’s most dangerous and toxic waste.

After 50 years of the nuclear industry, there is still no proven method to safely dispose of long-lived nuclear waste anywhere in the world. So, as far as the nuclear industry is concerned, what better idea than to ship it to Australia and dump it here. And the Liberal Party agrees with them.

An international nuclear waste dump is not to be confused with the dump being proposed in the Northern Territory. An international nuclear waste dump would be in a different place and deep underground. The waste would remain hazardous to people and the environment for at least 1 million years.

Australians quite rightly don’t want our country to become a uranium dump

cont..

Go back to 2005

21 July 2005
Proposed NT nuclear dump to receive highly radioactive waste for next 40 years

The Environment Centre NT (ECNT) says the proposed NT radioactive waste dump is intended to go on receiving long-lived, highly radioactive waste from the new Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney for the next 40 years.

“This waste, from reprocessed spent fuel rods, is likely to be shipped to the NT via Darwin Harbour, some of it arriving in 112 tonne ‘casks’. An unspecified amount of this most dangerous waste will be arriving periodically over the next 40 years. It will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

“The waste from a single reprocessed spent fuel rod is far more radioactive than ALL the waste the Commonwealth proposed to dump in SA, and spent fuel rods from the new reactor will be twice as radioactive as spent fuel from the current reactor, as ANSTO has acknowledged.

“Furthermore, contrary to Howard government assurances that only ‘low’ and ‘intermediate’ level radioactive waste is destined for the NT, spent fuel rods from Lucas Heights are classified by the NSW EPA and US regulatory authorities as HIGH LEVEL radioactive waste – and even when reprocessed remain highly radioactive.

ECNT has called on the Howard government to come clean on the full range and volume of radioactive and toxic materials likely to be transported each year to the proposed NT nuclear waste dump.
ECNT Coordinator Peter Robertson said, “Based on our research, there is a wide range of highly dangerous, long lived radioactive materials and other toxic substances that are likely to be included in shipments to the NT dump on an ongoing basis, were it established.

“After years of waste dump debate, the Howard government has never fully disclosed the full range and volume of materials involved. As with all things nuclear, secrecy is the order of the day, along with linguistic tricks designed to conceal the full extent and risks of what is being proposed.

“According to reports including the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney, the construction of which is the main reason the Howard government is desperate for a waste dump, there are at least twelve categories of radioactive material that are almost certain to end up at a NT dump.

“These include:
·      Approx. 50 cubic metres of highly radioactive waste produced from reprocessing more than a thousand existing and future spent reactor fuel rods (Lucas Heights) – arriving over the next 40 years in containers probably via Darwin Harbour; ·      Approx. 130 drums per year of radioactive ‘compactable low level solid waste’, e.g. vials, gloves etc (Lucas Heights); ·      Approx 20 drums per year of solidified radioactive ‘sludge’ produced in the treatment of reactor wastewaters (Lucas Heights); ·      Hundreds of tonnes of radioactive ‘non-compactable contaminated items’, e.g. materials from the decommissioned old Lucas Heights reactor, pipes, machinery etc; ·      A stockpile of over 5,000 drums of ‘low level radioactive waste’ (Lucas Heights); ·      A stockpile of over 200 cubic metres of ‘intermediate level solid waste’ some with ‘unknown radioactive inventory’ (Lucas Heights); ·      Over 800 drums of ‘historical wastes’ including radioactive thorium, beryllium and uranium (Lucas Heights); ·      Over 2000 litres of radioactive contaminated charcoal (Lucas Heights); ·      Hundreds of used air filters containing radioactive contamination (Lucas Heights); ·      Around ten cubic metres of highly dangerous solidified molybdenum ‘long lived intermediate level waste’ (Lucas Heights); ·      Over 2000 cubic metres of radioactive contaminated soil currently stored at Woomera; ·      Other Commonwealth Defence Department and CSIRO ‘historic’ radioactive waste.

“It must be stressed that radioactive waste in many of these categories will be produced and transported to the NT on an ongoing basis if and when the new Lucas Heights reactor is activated, so the volume of radioactive material will go on increasing every year.

“An analysis by Friends of the Earth shows that just to transport the existing stockpile of waste from Lucas Heights would involve over 130 truckloads of material. To transport all waste, current and ongoing, will require an initial 160 truck loads, another 200 truckloads for material from the decommissioned old reactor, and about 7 truckloads of new waste per year for the next 40 years.

“Once again it must be reiterated that the safest and only responsible way to deal with the problem of Australia’s radioactive waste, most of which is from the unnecessary Lucas Heights reactors in Sydney, is to store it in the safest possible way near the source of the waste, and to stop producing more and more of it.”

References: ANSTO Replacement Nuclear Research Reactor Draft EIS, Vol 2; Commonwealth Department of Science (DEST) Radioactive Waste Information Service, July 2005; Friends of the Earth Australia, “Some things you should know about a national store for nuclear waste”, 2003

cont..

The global dump & more uranium mining was all tied into the Aboriginal intervention in 2007 - which was a farce - where the Commonwealth initiated the 99 year leases - fortunately they didn't get too far with their plans.

I'll hunt around for the site where the dump is going to be situated and Howard's attendance at APEC was the final stitch in a deal with the US for Australia to be the future site for the world's uranium waste.

As far as Martin Ferguson goes - I've said it before and I'll say it again - he's a Liberal plant.

I did go back to 2005  when do you think hawke was hawking the project?

Bulls#it...  tied to the intervention...  your tin hat is on too tight.  You need psychological intervention re your Howard hatred.

If you're going to use nuclear power, make sure to build nuke weapons.

It'll make your penises larger. It are fact.

I wish I could get Jack Nicholson to scream down at our pollies;

"You can't handle the waste"

For me this is, still, after 40 years of interest in the subject, THE, sticking point for me, we really can't handle the waste.
We have some drilling into mountains, some stacking leaky old 44 Gallon drums, into huge toxic mounds in the wilderness, all hoping for the silver bullet fix, to be supplied by science, and so far, we have not got it.

I am not keen on signing up our kids, and grandkids, etc, etc, into the next 100 generations, or so, with the responsibility for looking after a massive pile of toxic waste, which may have pretty drastic potential.

Get the waste issue sorted, and I am on board, and do not try and sell me the idea that they can solve it next week, I have heard forty years of that, and I am getting a tad sceptical about it.

Even if they solved the waste problem which hasn't got off the drawing board alongside these new "clean" reactors - the expense is phenomal.  In a country like Australia with so much sunshine and other natural resources - we can't justify the billions and billions needed to put into NP.  It's not just a one off expense - it's ongoing forever.

NP is a huge con job and look at the cost to any country with reactors.  In fact I think the UK has stopped building them now, but the US has had such excellent salesman spruiking the benefits of NP, that many brainwashed governments have fallen victim.

For the proponents of NP - find any country that has been able to justify the expense of a reactor, not to mention the decommissioning of them as a reactor only has a very short life span.

Why create all this toxic mess because the pro-nuclear lobby tell you it's the best.  It is not a viable solution or industry if anyone bothered to look into it properly.  


Quote:

Yes mantra despite all your crap  it seems it was actually I that was right. Now run along...

No....

Mantra, although the point you make about the economic viability of Nuclear power, was correct, previously, most are factoring in massive rises in energy costs, which would make it economically viable, in the near future.

Therefore, that argument starts to look weaker, however, the de-commissioning costs, and especially the waste management costs, are very much open ended expenses, that no-one can accurately assess, because we have too many unknowns involved, to even make a vaguely definitive costing model.

If they can sort out the waste issue, then it really may be a viable option for future power generation.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 25^th, 2009 at 7:10am:

I wish I could get Jack Nicholson to scream down at our pollies; "You can't handle the waste" For me this is, still, after 40 years of interest in the subject, THE, sticking point for me, we really can't handle the waste. We have some drilling into mountains, some stacking leaky old 44 Gallon drums, into huge toxic mounds in the wilderness, all hoping for the silver bullet fix, to be supplied by science, and so far, we have not got it. I am not keen on signing up our kids, and grandkids, etc, etc, into the next 100 generations, or so, with the responsibility for looking after a massive pile of toxic waste, which may have pretty drastic potential. Get the waste issue sorted, and I am on board, and do not try and sell me the idea that they can solve it next week, I have heard forty years of that, and I am getting a tad sceptical about it.

Where do you get the leaky old 44 gallon drums from? It's in the form of syn rock. Australian technology for handling nuclear waste is probably the best in the world. It's a solid, it's not water soluble and it doesn't migrate.

The Americans use a type of borosilicate glass for theirs.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IKdxbcUbv4A/Rw5LPmsd7QI/AAAAAAAAAAk/bXB4PNNhn54/s320/Nara_Shikamaru.jpg
Why not use the waste as a weapon?

Build like.. big tanks and when you go to war, hose down your enemy with the toxic residue. I'm not sure how effective this is, but surely it won't let uranium urine go to waste!

Jim - the mighty US 'Iraqi liberation force' (AKA burn muther f___r burn)  already thought of that. They made sure it was added to depleted Uranium shells. It's not a very effective weapon, because it kills over many years as the kids play in the yellow powder-like ash that blows around after an armour piercing round has done its job.

Quote:

Where do you get the leaky old 44 gallon drums from

I get that from what we actually see the US doing with their waste, muso, and god knows what the russians do.

Of course it is not the high level waste left in huge stacks to leak, but even the low level waste has to be disposed of with at least some care.

This page link;

http://www.sea-us.org.au/wastenot.html

gives a pretty fair summary of my ideas on the subject, and while I do not fully agree with their somewhat dismissive attitude to the synrock process, neither do I accept it as the solution.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 25^th, 2009 at 12:33pm:

Mantra, although the point you make about the economic viability of Nuclear power, was correct, previously, most are factoring in massive rises in energy costs, which would make it economically viable, in the near future. Therefore, that argument starts to look weaker, however, the de-commissioning costs, and especially the waste management costs, are very much open ended expenses, that no-one can accurately assess, because we have too many unknowns involved, to even make a vaguely definitive costing model. If they can sort out the waste issue, then it really may be a viable option for future power generation.

Mozzaok - Forget about NP being unsafe and often unreliable then.  We haven't got an infinite supply of uranium, in fact some researchers have estimated that we have perhaps a 100 years at most left.

As uranium becomes more scarce over the next century how will this reduce the cost of NP and you've also got to take into account overall  the unsafe history of reactors?  We're talking about propping up an industry that possibly only has a century left to survive, no safe storage or "green" reactors and a toxic legacy to leave to our survivors for the next half million years.

All these grand plans for storage and green reactors are still only ideas spruiked by the lobbyists as they hold their hand out for more and more cash to "develop" their grand plans which by the time they come to fruition - uranium will be as expensive as gold.  

How long will the world's uranium supplies last?
Steve Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, supplies an answer

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YELLOWCAKE: There should be enough uranium to fuel the world's current fleet for more than 200 years.
Courtesy of Cameco Corporation
MORE TO EXPLORE
Overview
The Future of Nuclear Power

How long will global uranium deposits fuel the world's nuclear reactors at present consumption rates?

Steve Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, supplies an answer:

If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.

Most of the 2.8 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity generated worldwide from nuclear power every year is produced in light-water reactors (LWRs) using low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. About 10 metric tons of natural uranium go into producing a metric ton of LEU, which can then be used to generate about 400 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, so present-day reactors require about 70,000 metric tons of natural uranium a year.

According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time.

Using more enrichment work could reduce the uranium needs of LWRs by as much as 30 percent per metric ton of LEU. And separating plutonium and uranium from spent LEU and using them to make fresh fuel could reduce requirements by another 30 percent. Taking both steps would cut the uranium requirements of an LWR in half.

Two technologies could greatly extend the uranium supply itself. Neither is economical now, but both could be in the future if the price of uranium increases substantially. First, the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates. Second, fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.

Editor's Note: This question was submitted by G. Peck of Seward, Alaska and will be printed in the March 2009 issue of Scientific American.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last

I should note also that Thorium can be used instead of Uranium to fuel reactors. And there is about 4-5 times the Thorium on the planet compared to Uranium.

So I think we are good for the next 1000 years or so. Not even accounting for developments in tech which mean that we use less fissile material to power reactors, or develop something better.